Friday, September 14, 2018

Dropping Knowledge Word by Word

Revelations often come from unexpected places, and this week's CSA newsletter from Gathering Together Farm struck me with the idea that the food I put on my table has much deeper benefits than just a meal for my family—it's also nourished the minds and hearts of the farmers and crew members who grew and harvested it.

"Whenever I sit down to write this newsletter, the conversations that took place while we harvested your produce starts flitting through my mind. More than any one particular conversation, I wanted to draw attention to the amazing language immersion experience that one has on our harvest crew. While we’re sharing immense amounts of knowledge about how to harvest vegetables properly, in doing so we are also exchanging immense amounts of language in order to get the job done.

"Our 2018 harvest crew is an incredibly diverse bunch of folks, all of whom speak different combinations of languages. There are those who speak Spanish and English to varying degrees, those who speak either Spanish or English, and then there are Spanish speakers who speak indigenous languages, including Mixteco from Mexico, and Mam and Kanjobal, both Mayan languages from Guatemala. Some people have been farming their whole lives, some for the past decade, and others are experiencing farm life for the first time.

"At the beginning of the season, it felt like the language barrier hindered efficiency, but the barrier has since been broken. Over this season, everyone has learned so much English and Spanish, and a few select language buffs have even taken to learning the differences and similarities between the indigenous languages. For me, I have honed my Spanish abilities to a whole new level that is simply not possible in a classroom. But what’s more important than the words we’ve learned has been the relationships that we’ve built with each other as we laughed and grumbled our way through communication breakdowns and successes, just as any good learning process should be.

"As you eat your way through your box this week, remember the diversity of words that passed through the air as we harvested, the words that made possible the logistics of assuring quality control and efficiency as we moved from field to field, the words that maybe didn’t make sense the first time and had to be laughed off and said again before they got the message across. As we have spent our days working our bodies in the fields, our minds have been far from dormant. It’s been one stimulating season of knowledge exchange, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.